
Jean Parker
Actor · 1915 – 2005 · Deer Lodge, Montana, USA
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jean Parker (born Lois Mae Green; August 11, 1915 – November 30, 2005) was an American film and stage actress. She landed her first screen test while still in high school. She acted opposite such well-known actors as Katharine Hepburn, Robert Donat, Edward G. Robinson, Randolph Scott, and Laurel and Hardy. She was married four times and had one son, Robert Lowery Hanks. Parker appeared in 70 movies from 1932 through 1966. In 1932, she posed as a flower girl and living poster in a float in the Tournament of Roses Parade, where she was seen by Ida Koverman, secretary to MGM mogul Louis B. Mayer. The following day the studio called her on the phone and invited her for a screen test. Parker's film debut came in Divorce in the Family (1932). She had a successful career at MGM, RKO and Columbia including roles in such films as Little Women, Lady for a Day, Gabriel Over the White House, Limehouse Blues, The Ghost Goes West, and Rasputin and the Empress. In 1939, she starred opposite Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy in RKO's The Flying Deuces. Parker remained active in film throughout the 1940s, playing opposite Lon Chaney in Dead Man's Eyes, and a variety of other films. During World War II, she toured many of the veteran hospitals throughout the U.S. and performed on radio. In the 1950s, Parker co-starred opposite Edward G. Robinson in Black Tuesday; had a small but effective role in The Gunfighter, and appeared in A Lawless Street (1955). Her last film appearance was Apache Uprising (1966). Parker also appeared on Broadway. In 1949, she replaced Judy Holliday in Born Yesterday on Broadway and enjoyed a successful run in this classic. She appeared on Broadway opposite Bert Lahr in the play Burlesque. She did summer stock in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, toured in the play Candlelight and Loco, and performed on stage in other professional productions. In 1954, Parker played the role of "Cattle Kate Watson of Wyoming" in an episode of the syndicated television series Stories of the Century, the first western program to win an Emmy Award. The series starred and was narrated by Jim Davis. Later in her career and life, Parker continued a successful stint on the West Coast theatre circuit and worked as an acting coach. At age 83, Parker moved into the Motion Picture and Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California, where she died of a stroke on November 30, 2005, at the age of 90. She was survived by her son, Robert, and granddaughters Katie and Nora Hanks. She was buried at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills.
Movies24
Movie6.8DramaFamilyFour sisters come of age in America in the aftermath of the Civil War.
Little Women
1933 · 157 votes
Movie7.4WesternThe fastest gun in the West tries to escape his reputation.
The Gunfighter
1950 · 216 votes
Movie6.4ComedyWarOllie falls in love with a woman. When he discovers she's already married, he unsuccessfully attempts suicide but he and Stan then decide to join the Foreign Legion to get away from their troubles. When they’re arrested for soon trying to desert the Legion—they escape a firing squad by stealing an aircraft.
The Flying Deuces
1939 · 184 votes
Movie7.1ComedyDramaApple Annie is an aging New York City fruit seller whose daughter Louise has been raised in a Spanish convent since she was an infant. As she grows up, Louise is led to believe that her mother is a society matron called Mrs. E. Worthington Manville. Annie worries that her lie is in danger of being uncovered when she learns that Louise is sailing to New York with her new fiancé and his nobleman father.
Lady for a Day
1933 · 98 votes
Movie5.6WesternA Marshal must face unpleasant facts about his past when he attempts to run a criminal gang out of town.
A Lawless Street
1955 · 36 votes
Movie10.0AdventureGale, a store owner, lives in an Alaskan village with his grown ward, Necia, whom he had rescued years before from her murderer father, Captain Bennett. Now Bennett, disguised as Ben Stark, has arrived in the village seeking vengeance and his daughter.
The Barrier
1937 · 1 votes
Movie6.1CrimeThrillerVicious gangster Vincent Canelli pulls off a daring prison escape just moments before going to the electric chair, taking with him Peter Manning – a bank robber and cop killer who was to die right after him. Taking several hostages along, they try to get their hands on the loot from Manning’s robbery to finance their escape from the country.
Black Tuesday
1954 · 34 votes
Movie6.6DramaMysteryA traitor is lurking somewhere aboard the USS Carolina, and Lt. Tom Randolph is determined to find the offender. First a revolutionary new piece of technology -- an electric firing device -- is sabotaged. Then one of the cruiser's crew is murdered. In order to catch the killer, the captain locks down the ship. With foreign dignitaries, corporate goons and even Tom's girlfriend, Betty, trapped on the vessel, there is no shortage of suspects.
Murder in the Fleet
1935 · 5 votes
Movie5.0ComedyA modest country doctor in the antebellum South has to contend with his daughter's upcoming marriage and an affectionate medicine show elephant.
Zenobia
1939 · 14 votes
Movie6.9DramaFantasyA political hack becomes President during the height of the Depression and undergoes a metamorphosis into an incorruptible statesman after a near-fatal accident.
Gabriel Over the White House
1933 · 14 votes
Movie8.5ComedyRivals Bill Arden and Paul Herbert enter the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis in order to impress a girl.
Hello, Annapolis
1942 · 2 votes
Movie5.5DramaHistoryThe story of corrupt, power-hungry, manipulative Grigori Rasputin's influence on members of the Russian Imperial family and others, and what resulted.
Rasputin and the Empress
1932 · 15 votes
Movie5.6WesternA woman takes her four beautiful daughters to Alaska during the Gold Rush to find their fortune.
Those Redheads from Seattle
1953 · 12 votes
Movie6.7RomanceComedyPeggy Martin, daughter of a wealthy American businessman, persuades her father to buy a haunted Scottish castle from Donald Glourie. As the castle is dismantled and transported to Florida, its ghost tags along. Donald and Peggy fall in love, but the restless apparition proves to unwelcome, and they must find a way to appease the kilt-wearing spirit.
The Ghost Goes West
1935 · 39 votes
Movie6.6WesternTwo down-on-their-luck former outlaws volunteer to be Texas Rangers and find themselves assigned to bring in an old friend, now a notorious outlaw.
The Texas Rangers
1936 · 22 votes
Movie5.2ComedyMysteryAn insurance salesman, Albert Tuttle, is hired as a body guard for a millionaire.
One Body Too Many
1944 · 29 votes
Movie6.1ThrillerA cocky radio reporter sets out to prove an ex-convict is innocent in the murder of a mob boss.
I Live on Danger
1942 · 7 votes
Movie5.9DramaRomanceAmerican Civil War, 1862. After the disaster of the Second Battle of Bull Run, Major Allen, chief of the Secret Service of the Union, asks actress Gail Loveless to become one of his operators and infiltrate enemy territory.
Operator 13
1934 · 18 votes
Movie6.1DramaFantasyThe ghosts of three elderly industrialists killed in an airplane crash return to Earth to help reunite a young couple whom they initially brought together.
Beyond Tomorrow
1940 · 42 votes
Movie7.0WesternMarshal Landry captures outlaw Girard and bringing him in finds a woman and two children, the only survivors of an Indian attack. Later, transferring the prisoner his brothers free him. Then a stage is robbed of a silver shipment by Girard and his brothers. Examining telegrams gets Landry a confession from Girard's girlfriend. The telegraph line has been tapped and the telegrapher is the supposedly dead husband of the woman he brough in. Now knowing Girard's location he sets out after him.
Toughest Man in Arizona
1952 · 1 votes
- MovieComedy
Two autograph hounds attend an air show at Santa Anita racetrack.
Soaring Stars
1942
Movie5.7CrimeDramaAs a woman walks the "last mile" to her execution she remembers back to the incidents that got her framed for murder.
Lady in the Death House
1944 · 14 votes
Movie5.0DramaRomanceA woman and her children escape severe poverty and abuse. She successfully betters her family's condition while living with the secret that she killed her abusive husband in order to protect her children from him.
A Wicked Woman
1934 · 5 votes
Movie6.4WesternVarious stage coach passengers and outlaws travelling through Indian country are forced to join forces against the Apaches.
Apache Uprising
1965 · 15 votes
Series4
TV5.3DramaMatinee Theater is an American anthology series that aired on NBC during the Golden Age of Television, from 1955 to 1958. The series, which ran daily in the afternoon, was frequently live. It was produced by Albert McCleery, Darrell Ross, George Cahan and Frank Price with executive producer George Lowther. McCleery had previously produced the live series Cameo Theatre which introduced to television the concept of theater-in-the-round, TV plays staged with minimal sets. Jim Buckley of the Pewter Plough Playhouse recalled: When Al McCleery got back to the States, he originated a most ambitious theatrical TV series for NBC called Matinee Theater: to televise five different stage plays per week live, airing around noon in order to promote color TV to the American housewife as she labored over her ironing. Al was the producer. He hired five directors and five art directors. Richard Bennett, one of our first early presidents of the Pewter Plough Corporation, was one of the directors and I was one of the art directors and, as soon as we were through televising one play, we had lunch and then met to plan next week’s show. That was over 50 years ago, and I’m trying to think; I believe the TV art director is his own set decorator —yes, of course! It had to be, since one of McCleery’s chief claims to favor with the producers was his elimination of the setting per se and simply decorating the scene with a minimum of props. It took a bit of ingenuity.
Matinee Theater
1955 · 7 votes
TV5.1DramaAn anthology series adapted from the radio program of the same name. Like the radio program, many scripts were adaptations of literary classics by well-known authors. Classic authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, Agatha Christie, and Charles Dickens all had stories adapted for the series, while contemporary authors such as Roald Dahl and Gore Vidal also contributed.
Suspense
1949 · 12 votes
TV6.0ComedyPrivate Secretary is an American sitcom that aired from February 1, 1953 to September 10, 1957 on CBS, alternating with The Jack Benny Program on Sundays at 7:30pm EST. The series stars Ann Sothern as Susan Camille "Susie" MacNamara, devoted secretary to handsome talent agent Peter Sands, played by Don Porter.
Private Secretary
1953 · 2 votes
TV7.2WesternStories of the Century is a 39-episode Western television series starring Jim Davis that ran in syndication through Republic Pictures between January 23, 1954, and March 11, 1955.
Stories of the Century
1954 · 5 votes